Rensselaer Union, Volume 10, Number 27, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 March 1878 — A Sham Ghost captured. [ARTICLE]

A Sham Ghost captured.

Several times during the past month .two young ladies living in the western part of the city have been startled while on their way home from work, just at dusk, by the sudden appearance of a tall figure* enveloped in white and giving utterance to what were intended for soul-harrowing groans as it stalked up the street ahead of them, to suddenly disappear in - the darkness of a vacant lot. The young ladies, hSE being ■ of a particularly timid disposition and not at all superstitious, resolved to captur<> the “ghos having a suspicion that they knew the shadowy party. Tuesday evening they started for home about an hour earlier than usual, accompanied by two other young ladj’ friends. Arriving at the place where the “ghost” usually put in an appearance, two of the girls secreted themselves at the point where he always disappeared, while the other girls went back and w’aited, so that they might appear at the usual hour. Promptly on time, no sooner had they turned the cornerlhan ouf alley ahead of them walked the party in white, who, as before, marched along slowly and with groans. . losteadof following : : j& a respectful

distance the girls tip-toed rapidly to within about ten feet of the "ghost,’' when hearing their hurried steps he looked back over his shoulder and started on a lively run for the hole in the fence. The girls at this point braced themselves for the climax, and when he jumped through he was seized and firmly held until the four girls had him completely at their mercy, stripped of his white sheet and paper hat, and recognized as a youth about eighteen years old, with whom they were all well acquainted. In payment for his silly trick the girls tore the sheet into shreds, tied his hands behind him, tied his paper hat firmly on his head, and with a well-twisted cotton leadingstring about his neck, pulled and drove him a distance of about seven squares, the last half of the parade being through a comparatively public street, where the “ghost” received the full benefit of his “make-up” in the derision he excited among passers-by.— Detroit Free Press. a